SGT. ROCK Movie In The Works Again!! This Time It's Set In The Future!!

Merrick here...
Joel Silver is looking to produce a SGT. ROCK movie which would be directed by Francis Lawrence (I AM LEGEND, CONSTANTINE).
Chad St. John will script the D.C. Comics based film, which is also being produced by Akiva Goldsman.
There have been numerous aborted attempts...over many, many years...to bring SGT. ROCK to screen, but this one's a little different than the others by way of setting.

Until now, “Rock” has retained its World War II setting, with Silver and the studio trying to make a big-budget action adventure movie that was a throwback to flicks like “The Dirty Dozen,” which feature acts of American derring-do.
But a big budget always was an obstacle and, “Inglourious Basterds” notwithstanding, period war movies have not been in vogue in Hollywood for years, unless it was a more serious contemplation of the subject like “Saving Private Ryan.” Also, American jingoism went out of style after 9/11; even this summer’s G.I. Joe movie dropped the toy’s “A Real American Hero” tagline and made the action team internationally focused.
The studio hopes moving the time period to the future solves the dilemma.

...says THR HERE.
Check out the Hollywood Reporter link above for a sampling of all the folks who've tried to make this project happen in the past. And, why do I get the feeling this one won't come to life, either?
Various SGT. ROCK publications can be found HERE.

Sgt. Rock is not Sgt. Rock if he's not killing Nazis! All we need is another stupid fucking future battle picture. "Soldier", anyone?
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I was looking forward to Guy Ritchie directing Statham or Bruce as the Sarge himself! Or get John Milius on that shit! Fuck! Shit in my cereal. BTW, Ape, you're dead wrong, "Basterds" was tits and Michael Fassbender was like David Niven, a real OG. Stiglitz! This is worst fucking film news I have ever fucking heard. Let's start a fucking riot. Shane Black can lead us. Let's storm some studio office, like Sam Peckinpah did during the making of "The Killer Elite"-shit was badass-and go '68 Paris on those dumb motherfuckers. You had to go and fuck up Sgt. Rock, didn't you? I hope this is some bullshit rumor and Joel Silver gets back on the old school track. If he does, I'll do a fucking jig. Here's hoping Sho Kosugi gets to fuck shit up in "Ninja Assassin".

The time period before anything else. because they can sell a futuristic space actioner, but not an old school WW2 actioner. So forget the story, or context, or any reason why it would be called Sgt. Rock. Mr. Writer-man, make me a space movie! The kiddies love em! And throw in some of those vampires, if possible.

Forget Sgt. Rock; set that aside. What if the U.S. had decided not to use the atomic bombs, and launched an invasion of Japan instead? The carnage factor would be phenomenal; the battles epic and thoroughly ruthless. Like Okinawa, but much broader. It's theoretical, so you could approach it from any number of angles.<P>Obviously, the budget would be steep and it would need a strong director. Just a thought.

...this has got to be, hands down, the dumbest fucking idea I've read in a very long time. <p>Hey, remember what happened the last time you just kept the name, and then took away everything else that made a character great and unique and beloved, foolishly thinking that you could create something better and more popular than what decades worth of comic book history had created and refined? It was called Catwoman. Here endeth the lesson.<p>Frank Rock and the men of Easy Company don't deserve to fight for 20+ years to get onto our screens only to have it turn into some bastardised version that bears very little to no resemblance to the real thing. I mean maybe you could get away with putting Frank Rock and the boys into a different era's war, though I honestly wouldn't recommend it, and see no reason to do so, but completely changing the concept and characters this way, dumbest move since the Catwoman movie idea. Actually, dumber, because at least that can be written off as ignorance, but to do the same thing again, and make the same monumental mistake a second time, knowingly and with eyes fully open, well that's just Darwin Award winning levels of dumb right there.<p>I mean shit, what's next? Conan the Barbarian, but as a male suburban nanny, wandering aimlessly from home to home in search of struggling parents to help? Or how about Enemy Ace. But instead make him American. And a truck driver. In the not-too-distant future. With a monkey as a sidekick. Because everybody loves monkeys. Or, no, I know, how about a Green Arrow movie. But give him guns instead. And black leather. And make him a ninja. And gay. Fighting aliens. And by aliens I mean illegal mexicans. Who actually turn out to be aliens. Or do they? Yes, I think they do.<p>I swear, if they make this I'm going to declare Hollywood Poland and invade that motherfucker my own self...

It's called fucking patriotism. It's not jingoism to love your country and believe that it is THE SHINING BEACON OF FREEDOM on this earth. Love it, like it or don't. I don't ask a Frenchman to denigrate his own country. I don't ask a Brit to put down his homeland. I don't ask a German to make caveats about his national pride. I hope they are proud of their country. I hope they love their nation. I don't care if they think its the greatest place in the world. Let them. And let me... believe the United States of America, my country, is the greatest nation on earth. And I do, I always will. No qualifiers, no caveats. A M E R I C A.<p>And to hell with the makers of GI Joe for dropping 'A Real American Hero'. Maybe I would've seen it if they hadn't.

Reading the column, it doesn't say which future. Moving Rock to his future, our present day, would be literally correct with what the article says (and what they did at DC, for that matter, with Giffen's Suicide Squad).

This is the same director behind the movie that made John Constantine American, with black hair, and completely devoid of any of the rogueish elements that make him such a great character in the comics.

Well put, thebearovingian! Totally agree. I'm getting tired of this recent trend in Hollywood to swap American patriotism with International humanism. I'd much rather root for the U.S. Army or the Marines than for the United Nations Peacekeepers. I, for one, would absolutely welcome some war movies that embrace American patriotism and aren't apologetic about being so. I think there's a sleeping market out there for that. As for Sgt. Rock, I was never too familiar with him, and don't have much of a vested interest in him, but it doesn't sound like he has much of an identity outside of World War 2 and his Easy Company unit.

Sgt Rock was always meant to be the last soldier killed on the last day of the war by the last enemy shot fired, you just had to ask Joe Kubert or the late Robert Kanigher, and they'd always confirm that. But DC tried to bring the, at the time wildly popular, character beyond world war 2 and into the mainstream superhero DC world, but never managed to do so very successfully. There were a few attempts at that over the years, including that Suicide Squad run that ultimately ended with him pulling a mask off to reveal he wasn't old Frank Rock after all, and the caption "Frank Rock died in 1945". Some had theorized that it was in fact the Unknown Soldier playing Frank, while others believe it was a setup to launch a mysteriously de-aged Frank Rock into the modern DC Universe. Niether possibility was ever followed up. Other theories about post WW2 Frank Rock include that old DC standard, mulptiple versions of Frank on multiple earths to explain away any continuity issues. But according to the creators, and most fans, Sgt Frank Rock died in 1945 at the end of the war. Kanigher did do one post ww2 Sgt Rock story, but he always considered that a "what if Frank had survived the war" rather than a proper in continuity tale, and the story itself was a tribute to the mythos of The Unknown Soldier, both comic version and real life version. Oh, and in my opinion Sgt Rock was the greatest war character ever created for comics, and most of his anti-war war comics, even from way back in the day, still stand the test of time, as do most of the Enemy Ace, Haunted Tank and Jonah Hex stories from back in the day, unlike most of their Superhero counterparts.

Inglorious Basterds was *pure* American Jingoism.
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It basically said, if ONLY the neo-cons were fighting the war, then we'd have been off torturing Nazi's and beating them with baseball bats and shit, and carving their heads, and fuck the Geneva Convention! And then we'd have killed Hitler and his henchmen a LOT sooner!
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It was the worst kind of jingoistic fetishistic torture porn and it was GUARANTEED to find an audience who'd whoop hollar and cheer for the torturing Americans.
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Fuck that. Jingoism is alive and well. It's just that the G.I. Joe movie was so fucking stupid, it couldn't even appeal to that crowd.

No Giant Robots? They're setting it in 2114 Oslo so it's Sargt Rjock? Trust me I gots no dogges in dis hunt. Sgt Rock was a fun comic at the time (read it in the 70's) and sure they could do a decent movie outta it as is--animated anyone?--but if they choose to cast Brendan Fraser or Chris Pine or set it IN PORTUGAL w/ a CAST OF GOATS WHO WOULD WANNA WATCH THAT?! well you can see where I'm going w/ that. <p> Let Mikey Bay have at it and be done.

A film about Sgt. Rock set in WW2 can be made by those who have the talent to pull it off. Those who just want to mine the creation of the best war hero in comics will of course come up with future Sgt. Rock.

Do you think you're "standing up" for something with stupid shit like that? America continues to be the most powerful nation the world has ever known. You're not "making a statement." This is the problem with neocons, they're not logical. It is possible to love your county and admit that there are flaws. The constitution is a near perfect document, but the people in power have occasionally fucked things up. It doesn't help anyone to have this mindless blind faith in America; you're logic should not be "America does it, therefore its right." It should be the other way around. P.S. I'm American.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? This is just cheesy and stupid. Might as well make it straight to dvd. But then again, most people love this ignorant shit. Transformers, G.I. Joe etc... And that's exactly the type of movie this will turn out to be.

Just discussing his scores would be more interesting than the topic of this talkback. Who wants to guess they release this around the same time as Captain America?<p>Anyone see Scarlet and the Black? Morricone's score for that was fuckin awesome.

He'll be sanitized and removed from his "real" is his origins. He will be leading a squad that fights against the alien race of radical "Puzzlins" that crash their space ships into our national monuments and want us to worship only the sun God Ra.

He was "transported" to the future when in reality he was just having a hallucination after one of his many concussions over the years both from the boxing ring, and WWII. Any attempt to put Rock in a scenario other than WWII is sheer stupidity.

First, he presents "Constantine" as a steaming pile of shoddy effects and annoying supporting characters, after a cheap Americanization. Then he turned one of the greatest pieces of science fiction literature and turned it into a Bob Marley joke. This fucker should be working for Syfy.

In a world where international box office means a big deal to studios, I just cannot see SGT. ROCK getting greenlit. There just aren't a lot of people on the planet who will pay money to see the American flag waved in their faces for 2 hours.

Movie goers don't even know who Sgt. Rock is. Make the big budget shoot 'em up in space flick with, oh my god, original character names. Don't have to pay DC anything, DC doesn't have to worry about another crap adaptation of their characters, and some little kid who goes to see the film and then goes and buys a Sgt. Rock comic doesn't read it and say "WTF?".

Anyone who has read the more recent Sgt. Rock (e.g. Brubakers 'Between Hell & a Hard Place') know that Rock isn't frozen in time as a jingoistic kids comic. <br><br>Setting Rock in the future basically destroys the point of the character - I agree with the others above who point out that you may as well change the names and avoid linking it to DC at all. <br><br>Setting this in the future will have exactly two effects: 1) Piss of Rock Fanboys, ensuring that the bad word of mouth kills the film, and 2) Confuse the merchandise tie-ins no end.

Francis Lawrence is a hack and a butcher!
What he did to I am legend was horrible! The novel is one my favorite books of all time and this horrid will smithy bullshit steam turd of a movie had nothing to do with it whatsoever!!!
where were the vampires? where was the ending that explains why the thing is called "i am legend"???
and now sgt. rock in space vs. predators or what??? Yeah, go on you hack. Next up, Spider-man, but with Superman Powers set in the wild west!

Agreeing with everyone else that this has got to be one of THE stupidest ideas, EVER.
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If they want a future space adventure movie, why don't they just call it something else. If it's not set in WWII fighting Nazis, it isn't Sgt. Rock.

...shouldn't that be a clue that you have the wrong source material?<p>"Er, we want to make a Sgt. Rock movie, but we can't, so we'll make Sgt. Rock into something it isn't..."<p>Hollywood is so stupid today.

Wouldn't presume there will be no WWII Nick Fury in Marvel's films. If Obama's granddad could be a white officer in Patton's army, then Sam Jackson's granddad could've been a white sergeant from Hell's Kitchen.